Last Man to Die by Michael Dobbs
As the silence dragged on Hencke could feel the eyes of some of the crew, particularly the younger ones, latching on to him, piercing him with accusation. The one who had brought them here. The one who had caused all this. The passenger …
‘Do we have any prospects?’ he asked the captain.
‘Staying here and slowly choking to death,’ responded Eling grimly. ‘Or trying to escape without breathing apparatus from 120 metres and probably drowning. Take your pick.’
‘It’s no fun dying slowly, Captain.’
‘I do so agree.’ He gave a small Prussian nod of respect. At least the bastard wasn’t panicking and screaming his head off; Eling couldn’t have stood that. ‘So. We make ready to abandon ship! Chief. Chief, where …?’
The chief had disappeared head-first through a service hatch in the floor. When he hauled himself back up he was coughing and his eyes were full of terror. ‘Chlorine!’ he gasped. ‘Chlorine!’
Sea water was leaking into the huge batteries which powered the electric motors, and the result was a chemical reaction which produced a gas as deadly as that found in any trench of the First War. And it was seeping uncontrollably around them.
‘For God’s sake flood the compartment and let’s get out of here,’ pleaded one of the younger ratings.
‘Can’t,’ the chief spluttered. ‘Won’t be able to open the hatch until the air pressure inside has equalled the water pressure outside. 120 metres. At that pressure the concentration of chlorine in the lungs will kill us in seconds.’
‘But it’ll kill us anyway!’ the rating responded. ‘We stay, we die. We try to leave, we die. What have you done to us, Chief?’ The edge of desperation in his voice was beginning to infect the others around him. It wouldn’t be long before there was a general outpouring of panic which would overwhelm them all.
‘There’s one chance.’ It was Eling who spoke, very quietly, to reassert his authority. ‘One chance, perhaps. Above our heads in the conning tower. There’s room for one man. We close the hatch between the control room and conning tower, he floods the conning tower like an escape chamber, he opens the exterior hatch and escapes.’
‘But what about the rest of us?’ pressed a petty officer.
The chief interjected, desperate to bear hopeful tidings for a change. ‘The first man closes the exterior hatch from the outside, we drain the conning tower, we do it all over again. Fourteen times.’ But he didn’t sound as if he had convinced even himself.
‘No, Chief. It won’t work. Not at 120 metres.’ It was Eling. ‘In order to shut the hatch from the outside he’d use up so much oxygen he’d never make it to the surface. If he forgets about closing the hatch he’s got a chance. A small one. One man. That’s it, and that’s all of it.’ A stillness of crushed hopes and despondency settled amongst the men. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ Eling continued. ‘You deserve to know.’
‘So which of us is it to be?’ a voice enquired.
‘Not I,’ stated the captain.
‘Nor I,’ whispered the chief.
‘Then who?’ insisted the petty officer. ‘Who’s going to play God and decide which one of us gets it?’
‘Meine Herren,’ Eling commanded sharply. ‘If there has to be an end, let us make it a good one, one worthy of the Kriegsmarine.’
‘I’ve got a wife and five children,’ the petty officer said. ‘My end is no bloody use to them, good or otherwise.’
‘You knew what your fate would be when you started on this war. The only thing you didn’t know was how or when,’ the captain responded, staring into their eyes. ‘So – now you do.’
‘But who is to get the chance? I’ve got five children too …’ another seaman lied.
‘Let’s draw lots,’ another suggested.
‘Call yourselves submariners,’ the wretched chief engineer cried, almost in tears. ‘Flood the whole damn boat and let’s get it over with!’ He lunged for a valve.
‘No!’ Eling instructed. ‘Chief – Take your hands away!’
The chief looked at his captain through red eyes and slowly withdrew. There was still too much discipline in him, he couldn’t refuse his commanding officer, not at the last, not after all this time.
‘I cannot play God,’ Eling continued in a low voice, forcing them to listen in silence, ‘but in the Kriegsmarine we don’t rely on luck or divine intervention, certainly not on the wisdom of our political leaders, but on duty. You’ve all followed that sense of duty from the moment you stepped on board this submarine, and that’s what has got us this far. Through the ice pack off Murmansk. And the convoy escorts off the Azores. And back to home port time and again when other U-boats weren’t so lucky. So our luck’s run out. But we are still submariners! We started this mission with orders to do everything we could to get this man’ – he waved at Hencke – ‘back home. We still have those orders. You all know who should get the chance.’
‘His life means we all die,’ the rating said.
‘Whoever gets out, the rest of us are going to die. Our only choice is whether we die like men or like rats. Not much of a choice, I agree. But it’s the only one we’ve got.’
No one moved. It was the truth, they knew it, but no one wanted to accept it. Surely there was some other way? Then the chief stepped forward and stood by the conning tower hatch. He offered the captain a crisp salute. In turn, the captain faced slowly towards Hencke. He had bloodshot eyes and Hencke could see close up that he was scared.
‘Do one thing for me, Hencke. Just get back. Make all this worthwhile.’
Hencke nodded. He said nothing; words would have been inadequate, even insulting. He placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder into the conning tower and began to climb, assisted by one of the men.
As he disappeared what was left of Eling’s crew came to attention as the captain barked the final order. ‘Chief. Secure the hatch!’
‘Thanks for agreeing to see me at such short notice.’ Eisenhower’s hand shot out from a crisp cuff and grasped the pudgy fingers extended towards him at the door of Ten Downing Street.
‘Your visit comes as a welcome distraction, General – particularly when the matter sounded of such urgency.’ Churchill led the way across the famous threshold, trailing cigar smoke. ‘I have to admit, now our armies are ploughing remorselessly through the remnants of the Wehrmacht, that time seems to hang heavy. Not so long ago – do you remember when we were planning the invasion of Europe together? – every hour seemed filled with suspense and the need to take mighty decisions. Today I find that matters for my attention are brought to me not by great commanders bearing brave ideas, but by bureaucrats who bear nothing but endless mountains of paper. I do battle with what they call post-war projections. It is an unappetising struggle.’ There was a weariness in the Old Man’s voice, an emptiness inside where once excitement and intrigue had burned.
He set a desultory pace as Eisenhower followed him into the secluded garden, where the mellow red-brick wall was covered in climbing plants and the lawn liberally sprinkled with daffodils and early tulips in abundant bloom. The cherry tree would soon be in blossom, encouraged by the unseasonably warm sunshine. Churchill had put on a floppy Panama hat which he used while painting to guard against the sun, and beside the cherry tree stood a table with comfortable wicker chairs and two large china cups.
‘And coffee. Scalding hot. Just as you like it,’ Churchill commented as a secretary brought out a steaming jug to stand beside one of the cups, accompanied by a more modest pot of what Eisenhower concluded could only be that piss-tasting English tea. They busied themselves with the formalities of pouring and stirring, using courtesies to avoid serious discussion. It was the first time they had met, even spoken directly, since that morning above Xanten; both were taking care not to scratch at half-healed wounds. It was only when they had settled and the wicker creaked and complained beneath them that Churchill decided the time had come.
‘Your message was intriguing, General. “Face to face … not
Eisenhower sipped his coffee carefully, watching over the rim of the cup as Churchill slurped away unselfconsciously, wiping a dribble of tea from his chin with the back of his hand. He waited until Churchill had replaced his cup in the saucer.
‘It’s about Berlin. And the redoubt. I felt I had to come and tell you personally.’
The Old Man’s eyes were instantly alert, the glaze of weariness gone. They reflected disquiet, and anger. The hurt of their last encounter had not yet died but he said nothing, waiting.
‘You know, I’ve been a military man all my life,’ Eisenhower continued as though telling tales around a fireside. ‘And I’m pretty damn good at it – one of the best. But the military is all about manpower and firepower and beating all kinds of hell out of the other guy’s army, and how you do it is almost secondary. That’s why I’ve never been able to understand why you seemed so … passionate about getting to Berlin and rejoicing in the ruins.’
Churchill was about to intervene to protest that he had never described his ambitions in those terms, but held back. He wanted to hear what Eisenhower was trying to say. Anyway, it was true.
‘But I’ve begun to realize that in one sense you were right. You can’t judge an enemy solely by the size of the barrel he’s got pointing at you. There are more ways to die in war than simply getting blown to pieces …’ The folksiness was gone, a sadness crept into his voice. ‘You know the reports we’ve been getting out of Poland of camps full of prisoners and bodies. I don’t know about you; I always treated the reports with a touch of caution. Those camps weren’t military targets, they didn’t affect the way the war was being fought. Anyway, there was always the suspicion they were exaggerated by Stalin’s propaganda machine. Deep down, perhaps I didn’t want to believe.’
‘The reports have been insistent, and growing in frequency. I dread to imagine what we might discover when the final curtain is drawn back on the Nazi stage.’
‘No need to imagine any more. Four days ago I went to a place called Ohrdruf Nord, just outside Gotha which we captured last week. The local divisional commander called me direct. Said I must come. He was almost in tears. Believe me, it’s all true and more.’ He moistened his lips, his mouth felt parched, as the taste of vomit not yet gone. ‘I saw bodies lined up in great avenues, hundreds of them, stacked one upon the other, just cast-off pieces of bone and skin lying out in the open waiting to be burned. Men, women, even children. The scale of what has happened passed anything I could comprehend. I thought they had brought me to the gates of hell, yet by the day we are discovering more camps, places like Buchenwald and Belsen. As we drive deeper into Germany they’re getting bigger and far, far worse. Seems the Germans are running out of time and furnaces to cover their tracks, they simply can’t dispose of that many corpses quickly enough …’
He was sitting tensely on the edge of his chair, leaning forward across the table, his voice flat and deliberately unemotional but, as the general had raised the ghosts of his visit, Churchill saw the colour drain from his face.
‘So I don’t need any more lessons about war being more than just military objectives. Now I understand your passion. There’s no man alive who wants so much to dance on that bastard’s grave, and if it meant leading a column to Berlin myself and digging the hole with my bare hands, I’d do it!’
‘But I’ll warrant you haven’t come here to offer me second-in-command of this hypothetical column.’
The American shook his head. ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I can tell you with all my heart that I haven’t cared for the … misunderstandings which have come between us recently. We shared so much in the months we were planning the campaigns in North Africa and Europe together. I had come to regard you as a close friend.’
‘You were right to do so, General.’ There was a determined set to Churchill’s jaw as he contemplated what he might say next. He was still battling inside with his pride. ‘This seems to be a moment for honesty. Well, let us not dance in shadows. We have had no “misunderstandings”, as you put it – we have understood each other all too well. We have shared differences of opinion which were profound and we both fought our cases hard. You have won, and I accept your victory with considerable regret. I fear that when Marshal Stalin gets hold of half of Europe, as he now certainly shall, it will be the prelude to a forest of concentration camps which will spring up through a long Siberian winter, and the peoples of Eastern Europe will have exchanged one terror for another. But the die is cast. In politics, as in life, we must move on.’
Having conceded defeat as gracefully as he could, Churchill stopped to take a cigar from the flap pocket of the one-piece siren suit he had himself designed and worn almost every day throughout the war. He had worn it today largely out of nostalgia; the war was all but over, it would soon be time to dispatch such wartime trivia to the back of the closet.
Eisenhower leaned across to light the Old Man’s cigar. ‘There’s more.’
‘Thought there might be,’ Churchill muttered, still full of hurt. ‘Didn’t have to come here to tell me yet again that I wasn’t going to get Berlin.’ He was staring moodily into the flame which rose and fell as the tightly packed tobacco leaves began to smoulder, his broad and upturned nose seeming to point at the General like an artillery piece made ready to fire.
Eisenhower’s tone was as soft as his words were chilling. ‘When I said I’d lead a column to Berlin to dance on his grave, I meant it. But he’s not going to be there.’
The flame stopped dancing.
‘The Germans have gathered all their leading atomic scientists in the Black Forest, just south of Stuttgart,’ Eisenhower continued. ‘They’re also transporting a small pile of uranium and other supplies to facilities around Berchtesgaden.’
‘Dear Lord, is it really happening …?’
‘And worse than we ever thought. The Alpine redoubt a reality. Endless war. And Hitler with an atomic bomb.’
Churchill sat silent as the words sank in.
‘No one knows for sure how close they are to putting together a bomb, but sure as hell doesn’t look as if Hitler’s ready to give up yet.’
‘Now I see why you came yourself.’ Churchill slumped back in his chair, cigar forgotten. ‘General, I must confess that when I contemplate what my scientists tell me about the power of the atomic bomb, I am filled with awe. I begin to believe the world is changing so fast and for such terrible ends that I no longer wish to play a part. Or perhaps I am no longer capable …’ His head went back and he looked to the heavens. ‘Roosevelt gone. Hitler and Mussolini soon to follow. The French Republic swept away. Poland, the country for whom we went to war in the first place, practically ceased to exist … There is a tide of history and it seems to have turned against me.’ His words faded as he slumped back in his chair looking aged and vulnerable, like a discarded rag doll, a crumpled old man in a child’s siren suit.
‘Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’ the General countered in a loud, belligerent voice. ‘I’ve lost count in recent weeks of how many times I’ve cursed and fretted, called you stubborn, cantankerous, cussed – and plenty of other things besides. You got in the way, held things up, went behind my back.’ His diction slowed to emphasize his words. ‘But … Never once have I lost sight of the fact that if it hadn’t been for you, and your infernal stubbornness and your mule-headed refusal to accept defeat, then this war would have been lost long before we Americans even got here. You talk about a tide of history. Well, there are some occasions when one man seems to stand his ground and just refuses to accept getting washed away. That’s how we arrogant Americans won the New World. And that’s how you, Mr Churchill, have saved the Old World.’ He leaned over to grab the other man’s hand, trying to rekindle the friendship and trust. ‘But for you, the whole of Europe
For a while Churchill continued to stare at the heavens, hiding the turmoil. When eventually his head came down his cheeks were moist. ‘Thank you, General.’ He nodded his gratitude, yet the eyes stared fierce and uncompromising, the bottom lip jutting forward. ‘But I was right about Berlin. You’ll see.’
‘It would have been empty … deserted.’ Eisenhower threw his hands up in exasperation. ‘Hitler’s not going to be there!’
‘We should not have let him escape. Dealt with him, sir, like a mad dog! No mercy. No Fuehrer. No Redoubt. No endless resistance. No bomb. And we would have had Berlin!’
The military man shook his head. ‘Kill him? Ridiculous.’
‘Why? We slaughter his armies freely enough.’
‘It would have been …’ Eisenhower searched for the argument.
‘Immoral?’ There was no mistaking Churchill’s impatience. He slurped his tea dismissively.
‘Impractical. We never know precisely where Hitler is. Nothing we have could get through that much concrete. There’s no way of getting at him, not even with a whole army of parachutists.’
‘Not an army. One man. On the inside.’
‘Be serious!’ Eisenhower exclaimed in astonishment. He had tried, dammit he had tried, to bring the Old Man back on side but the stubborn bastard wasn’t prepared to give an inch. His hand slapped down, the coffee spilled, his trousers stained but he did not notice. ‘Where in mother’s name could you have got one man? On the inside …?’
On the other side of the North Sea, on a spit of sand which before the war had been a favourite loitering place of North Germans seeking sun and relaxation, a figure, scarcely discernible in the pale moonlight, was washed up on the shore. For several minutes it made no movement except for the languorous waving of the legs in the receding tide. Then it coughed and threw up before starting to cough again. Slowly and with obvious pain the figure began to claw its way up the sandy beach to the dry dunes and to safety.